Do you leave your router on at all times?

wongataa

Chino wrote: »

It has never happened to me. Do you have any evidence that turning a router off for a period of hours has caused a problem with anyone's line speed?

I have experienced it. My girlfrined used to turn hers off when she went out and at night. After getting her to leave it on all the time the internet connection speed increased. It can happen.

zzzt

It should be left on. Most ISPs will dynamically adjust your speed based on connection performance. If you keep turning it off then it appears that it's dropping, and they will lower your throughput.

It's also a very minimal amount you will save compared to the inconvenience. Having my mobile and other devices automatically connected to wifi instead of the mobile network is much more preferable to me, especially since I have instructed many apps to only do certain things over wifi.

The only time it's really worth turning the router off is if you're going on holiday for a week or more.

onomatopoeia99

RumRat wrote: »

Is it an age thing????

My parents (average age almost 80) turn "the internet" off at night, so you could be right.

stockton_2

I leave mine on all day but switch off when I go to bed at night. (It is an "age" thing). My estimated download speed for this area is 52Mb.

I have just checked my line-speed to see how much my ISP is dynamically reducing my speed and I find that it is actually 55.6 Mb with an upload speed of 9 Mb.

Should I complain?

Mr_Toad

I'm not even sure I know exactly where my router is.

I know it's in the study at the back of the desk along with a Gigabit switch, a NAS drive and a Linux file server buried back there that I haven't seen for years, not since I last had a new router.

And, yes, I think turning stuff off is an age/attitude thing.

I have to say that I don't really understand the effort some people go to save a few fractions of a penny here and there or because they think the appliances will burst into flame the moment their backs are turned and the house will burn down if the don't.

Of course the heating and the fridge don't count and for most, the router, those obviously won't burst in flames.

I'm not an IT consultant either.

spud17

RumRat wrote: »

Is it an age thing????

Don't think so.
Mine's on all the time and I'm ancient, nearly as old as DCM.:D
Weather station on line all the time.
Smart TV updates etc are sent out during early hours?

p.s. I'm not an IT consultant.

Gers

spud17 wrote: »

Don't think so.
Mine's on all the time and I'm ancient, nearly as old as DCM.:D
Weather station on line all the time.
Smart TV updates etc are sent out during early hours?

p.s. I'm not an IT consultant.

My mum is almost 89 years old and leaves hers on all the time! Not an age thing.

boliston

never even thought of turning off a router at night - i turn off my pc and monitor when not in use as they use far more power than a router

jmc160

Mine is on constantly. I don't see the point of turning it off, the internet is an extremely convenient thing to have and I want it to be as convenient as possible. If wife or I have trouble sleeping, it's nice to be able to just grab a phone or tablet and watch Netflix for a while, or download a new book until sleep is possible again without having to trudge downstairs in the dark/cold to turn the router on first.. A lot of our devices are set to download and install updates in the night too so they can just get on with that without needing intervention.

Also our phone line uses the broadband rather than traditional coopper wire so it's handy to have that just be able to continue working if needed.

S0litaire wrote: »

yup mine is in 24/7 :

I've got one of my Raspberry Pi's sitting as an "Get_iPlayer" DVR + Mail server (just testing and getting to know how to configure the darn things properly!.

Another as an Plex headless server and another as a LAMP + GITWeb server for programming and testing stuff.

How do you find Plex on a RPi? I recently bought a Pi 3 for this exact purpose and I've found it struggles to play some of the media we have on there.

50Twuncle

I am on TT 76Mbps fibre - when I started on this service - I was not aware of the advice to leave the router running 24/7 and switched it off when not required
This gradually brought the connection speed down to 13Mbps download / 0.6Mbps upload
TalkTalk - agreed to pay for a BT engineer to reset the connection - and ever since then, it has run at 76Mbps download / 20Mbps upload (I live 80 yds from the cabinet)
So yes - you do need to leave your router on 24/7 - it uses negligible electricity !!
Don't leave PC's running 24/7 though - no point.